The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Leucanthemum commonly known as Shasta daisy, which is grown as an ornamental plant for use in the garden and landscape. The new cultivar is known botanically as Leucanthemum×superbum and will be referred to hereinafter by the cultivar name ‘Real Sunbeam’.
Leucanthemum is a genus within the family Asteraceae in which the commonly referred to “flower” is botanically the inflorescence which is comprised of outer showy ray florets surrounding smaller disc florets.
‘Real Sunbeam’ arose and was selected from an ongoing breeding program which is conducted by the inventors at the inventors' nursery in West Sussex, United Kingdom. The breeding program commenced in 2006 with the aim of developing new and improved commercial varieties of Leucanthemum. ‘Real Sunbeam’ is a seedling selection that resulted from the controlled pollination in 2011 of a single plant of the inventors' proprietary Leucanthemum seedling code ‘L1025-6’ (unreleased and unpatented) as the female parent, using pollen from a single plant of the inventors' proprietary Leucanthemum seedling code ‘L1045-5’ (unreleased and unpatented) as the male parent. The inventors selected ‘Real Sunbeam’ in 2012 based on the criteria of tight clumping basal branching and upright habit, non-fading yellow inflorescences held on very strong flower stems, ray florets typically arranged in two to three rows, and a large disc comprised of dense arrangement of deep golden disc florets.
‘Real Sunbeam’ was first asexually propagated by the inventors in West Sussex, United Kingdom in 2012 using the method of vegetative division and subsequently by basal shoot cuttings. Since that time under careful observation ‘Real Sunbeam’ has been determined uniform, stable and true to type in subsequent generations of asexual propagation.